Struggling to Play “The Game”
Our world - especially at school age - has a narrow definition of success and competency, and many kids don’t fit those narrow parameters. Society is often not kind to those who don’t “fit the mold” by effectively navigating the rules of the game. For many students, especially those with EF challenges with organization, time management, metacognition and social-emotional awareness, the “game” can feel rigged in favor of others and against them. They may have learned over the years to feel a sense of futility and even resignation, that there’s no value in playing a “rigged game.” They may have accumulated numerous experiences of being told they’re “underperforming” [code: ‘disappointing’] and that they “just need to try harder, focus on the task and be more consistent” [code: ‘get organized like everyone else and stop being such a mess, please.’] This repeated, layered experience year after year in school can reaffirm itself and lead to a complex mix of factors for a young person, whose core EF challenges become conflated with feelings of frustration and rejection, and can eventually result in a sense deep down that there’s no use in even trying if their best efforts may not lead to success.
How to Avoid Divestment
As we all know, it can make sense to the adolescent mind that it’s better not to invest real effort than to genuinely try and struggle and be vulnerable and then still not succeed. Why risk so much ‘self’ if the outcome - and subsequent feedback - will invariably always be negative? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: ‘I probably won’t be good enough at this, so why do more than the minimum necessary? If everyone is going to tell me I’m not good enough no matter how hard I try, I’ll just reallocate my time and energy elsewhere.’ If we look at a student’s struggle this way, this strategy of divestment from academic performance actually makes some practical sense, and might even be an important survival tactic. Effort in school that does not lead to a student feeling successful and competent can, over time, go in the opposite direction: effort that leads to disappointment can affirm self-doubt, reinforce antagonistic relationships with adults and drive a student further away from school engagement and investment, and even lead to seeing oneself as incapable of ever being a “student.” The important factor to keep in mind: no young person - or anyone for that matter - wants to not succeed, to divest, to feel like they can’t be seen as competent in the eyes of peers, teachers and family.
Need to Change the Internal Narrative
When they repeatedly hear from the authority figures and peers in their world that they’re ‘choosing to be unsuccessful’ by not succeeding at the traditional game, some students’ self-esteem can erode dramatically. ‘What’s wrong with me? Why am I letting everyone down? Why am I so screwed up?’ More than any other motivating factor, adolescents strive to be seen by others as legitimate, competent and viable, especially in the eyes of peers and mentors. There are those rare kids who struggle with EF that earnestly want to try to ‘crack the code’ of school success, and will repeatedly attempt to “scale that wall” despite repeated frustration and relative lack of success. Their eagerness to please others and prove self-worth bumps up against feelings of incompetency and a sense that no amount of effort seems to work. But for most students who struggle with EF, the “school game” may seem like a waste of time, and those kids may look elsewhere to feel a sense of worth, value, competency and belonging. For most students who struggle with EF, school is a hoop they still must jump through, but one they will never see as a genuine opportunity to shine. School becomes a necessary - or perhaps only required - “evil” in which they must begrudgingly engage. Teachers can encourage and warn, parents can urge and admonish, but ultimately for some students who struggle in school due in part to EF, the school game just isn’t worth playing, no matter what others say.
What these kids - whether they keep trying or resign themselves to failure - are missing, what they need in order to begin to turn around their situation, is a coach, someone dedicated to them as individuals, someone whose sole purpose in their lives is to help them learn how to play the game and win. Like us adults when we hit a roadblock, our kids too need a trusted advocate to help them learn how to navigate their challenges, and believe in their own abilities to succeed. This is where EF Coaching comes in.